“My personal concerns have been mirrored by many before. I don’t expect a knock on the door but the handling of individual cases by the Home Office is quite outrageous. I do not accept reassurances like ‘you will be OK, they need you’ and find them actually quite patronising and insulting to my fellow EU citizens who may find themselves in quite different circumstances to mine.

I am very surprised by the attitudes of many patients I look after. I find the intellectual disconnect between their support for Brexit and their personal experience of the NHS quite inexplicable. I understand the concerns they have and the problems they experience: Increasing delays and waiting times, funding that doesn’t keep up with inflation, services cut or rationed. Their conclusions however are flawed; you are much more likely to be treated by an immigrant than standing behind one in the queue. Europeans in Britain are net contributors to the NHS in financial terms and make up to 20% of personnel in some areas of the NHS. Already nurse recruitment and midwife recruitment from EU countries has fallen off the cliff. No nurses means closed wards, no beds, longer waits, no Physio, no community care. No Radiologists means no appointments for X Rays, no Doctors means no out patient appointments, no elective surgery, no continuity.

Training your own is a fallacy too, since decades are needed to train specialists and even now we have no British applicants to fill nurse vacancies. The NHS is 40 000 nurses and over 10 000 doctors short.

Many more problems will arise from disruptions to medical supplies. The Medicines Controls Agency has moved from London to Amsterdam, taking experience and funding with it, Britain will lose out on lucrative and prestigious investment and expertise and the supply chain of vital drugs will be threatened. I’m not just talking about Insulin, which can’t be stockpiled, but many other drugs we take for granted to have available without disruption every day.

Brexit will affect the supply of Radioisotopes which we currently receive from European countries. This will have an effect on the scans performed every day to diagnose cancer and on cancer treatment itself.

There are many more examples of how Brexit will negatively affect us all directly or indirectly within the NHS. The Brexit ‘dividend’ for the NHS was a cruel lie for political gain – we already spend more on Brexit every day than any extra funding would have promised, and we are not even taking into account the reduced tax take following the economic downturn after Brexit that even the most optimistic proponents of Brexit are not denying any more.

Yet, most of my patients who are in favour of Brexit and happy to talk about it seem to be in denial of this. They will have a rude awakening I fear. ‘Keep calm and carry on’ is cold comfort when you are out of your prescriptions, in a queue outside A+E, have not enough nurses and doctors to put you into the bed that doesn’t exist any more.

More profiles of local people and the positive association of Europe in our villages can be found here.

A very good, free mental health service is provided by Mind at the Melbourn Hub, once a month on a Thursday. To make a referral (including for yourself), please ring 01223 311320 to speak to the wellbeing team, or alternatively you can send an email to wellbeing@cpslmind.org.uk.

Do you experience mental distress? Does this stop you achieving what you want to in life? Are you aged 18-64?

The CPSL Mind Wellbeing Service is providing a service in Melbourn to support people whose lives are affected by mental health issues.

The service aims to help people who want to achieve better mental health, by encouraging individuals to build their own emotional and practical coping strategies. We will do this through six 1:1 goal focussed sessions.

]]>https://susanvandeven.mycouncillor.org.uk/2018/11/13/mental-health-support-at-melbourn-hub/feed/0Letter received on Fridayhttps://susanvandeven.mycouncillor.org.uk/2018/11/05/letter-received-on-friday/
https://susanvandeven.mycouncillor.org.uk/2018/11/05/letter-received-on-friday/#respondMon, 05 Nov 2018 12:48:23 +0000https://susanvandeven.mycouncillor.org.uk/?p=6013This letter was sent to all Cambridgeshire County Councillors.

Dear Ms van de Ven,

My business is based in Cambridge (although I live in a nearby village) and manufactures high tech equipment used to test power cables connecting offshore wind farms. 85% of our business is with EU companies based outside the UK. All of these companies are actually part of a complex global supply chain building UK windfarms. We have been supported by the DIT at multiple European export events. When we sell a £100,000 tester it comes with a number of supporting services (installation, training, project management, technical support etc). We handle this from the UK with UK staff (“Posted Workers” as we are known when we travel to other EU countries) and make frequent short trips to our customer sites often at the very last minute. For example, a customer will ring up today and we’ll be expected to be on site in Rotterdam tomorrow. It’s all very just-in-time but one has to be flexible to win work in this industry

Last week I was called to a meeting in Holland. Our customer is concerned that we will not be able to support them if the UK crashes out of the EU without a deal. At least in the Dutch business community, they expect this to be the most likely outcome of the negotiations. I know you are going to say “we are working on a deal” but this message is not getting through to European companies. Our customers are a multi-billion Euro industrial conglomerates, they are diligently performing no-deal contingency planning (I also suspect our EU competitors are bringing these matters to their attention).

The EU do not like “Posted Workers” very much.

The UK do not like “Posted Workers” very much.

A loophole in the freedom of movement rules allows a Polish/Romanian temp agency to employ staff in Eastern Europe (where labour is cheaper) and to transport and accommodate them in a relatively expensive country like the UK. They can be “posted” to a different country within the EU on a short term basis for less than 12 months. They cost less than local UK staff and this has directly contributed to reduced pay levels right across the UK (and other Western European countries). You often hear people complaining of the 8 Eastern European guys living in the 3 bedroom house down the street. They are probably posted workers on short term contracts. The EU, quite rightly, do not like the fact that employers often deduct travel and accommodation costs from staff wages. The individuals themselves end up earning really very little and consequentially work very long hours. I can imagine there are one or two big online retailers who ‘employ’ their drivers this way.

The EU put a stop to this on 21 June 2018. All countries in the EU, including the UK, have 2 years to implement the legislation. The revised rules aim to ensure that workers receive the same pay and rights as local workers, even if they are on a temporary assignment in a different EU country.

Our highly technical UK staff are also treated as “Posted Workers” when we travel to EU countries for a couple of days to support our product. I’m very concerned that our staff, along with 40,000 other, mainly high-tech, UK Posted Workers will be sacrificed in the stubborn Brexit-at-any-cost process the Government seem to be pursuing.

My customers are concerned that non-EU nationals currently need a “Schengen Visa” for travel to the Schengen zone. These require a considerable amount of paperwork and are currently rarely processed in under two months (and that’s based on today’s workload which will presumably increase massively if all UK travellers need visas). Let’s assume we can get a multi-entry visa so we don’t have to repeat this for every separate trip. The trouble is we cannot apply until the UK leaves the EU so there will be at least 2 or 3 months when we are unable to make support visits to Europe, unable to provide on-site support will destroy our business. Our client is strictly unable to allow work under “tourist visa” terms as there are severe legal consequences for EU companies that do that.

This brings me to the more important issue. Non-EU Nationals also need an “EU Blue Card” work permit to perform “value added” work inside the EU. The term “value added” apparently means anything other than an occasional business meeting. Details here http://www.eu-bluecard.com/how-to-apply/ To get one of these will be much more difficult, if not impossible. An EU sponsoring company must apply on your behalf and give you an employment contract of more than 12 months. The company must prove they have advertised and failed to find EU workers who can do equivalent work, only then can they apply. The conditions are fairly strict (hence why there are not many Americans, Africans, Indians etc officially working in Europe). You need a university degree or 5 years of professional experience. It currently takes around 4-6 months to apply. I suspect this will be a huge problem. I can’t imagine any of our clients wanting to offer a 12 month contract for a 1 or 2 day visit or to go through the hassle of applying on our behalf. It’d be so much easier for them to use an EU based person or company. Even if they did want to take on the admin and responsibility I’m not sure we would qualify anyway (given we don’t all have university degrees).

This sort of admin delay will essentially destroy our business. Our European competitors are busy spreading this message for their obvious commercial advantage.

What am I supposed to say when my client needs us on site tomorrow but there is a 4-6 month admin process to get a visa and work permit?

I hear a lot of MP’s pompously saying how WTO rules are not the end of the world. What they seem to forget, or don’t understand in the first place, is that WTO rules do not allow our people to travel to the EU to perform any “value added” services to support our producs. If our customers cannot get support there will be no sales. It’ll destroy our business overnight.

This is already costing us time, money and sales.

My only hope is that Cambridgeshire County Council, along with many other county councils, will push for an “Peoples vote (with an option to remain)” so we have a chance to abandon this crazy Brexit mess. I’m astounded that the Conservative party, the party for business, is creating a situation which will destroy many high-tech export businesses as their UK staff will be unable to work inside the EU to support their products.

I realise that there are only about 40,000 “Posted Workers” from the UK so it’s probably not on the top of your list of priorities. However, it cannot be right to sacrifice the livelihoods of these people, to ruin these high-tech businesses, for next to no post-Brexit advantage.

“The £400 million announced by the Chancellor barely scratches the surface of what is needed to make up for the erosion of school funding over the last few years.

His comment that the money will help schools ‘to buy the little extras they need’ shows a complete misunderstanding of the prevailing funding pressures. Many schools do not have enough money to provide a full curriculum or individual support for pupils, let alone ‘little extras.’ What they desperately need is improved core funding.

The increasing demand for adequate provision for the growing proportion of children with special needs is particularly challenging.

School funding in real terms has gone down by nearly 8% since 2014. ‘Real terms’ means what the money can buy. The gross figure has increased but there are more children going through the education system. The reduction in real terms money is confirmed by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The proportion of children needing some kind of special help is increasing due to improved medical care, societal and domestic pressures caused by instability in housing and poverty, greater stress in terms of academic expectations in the system at far too early a stage.

There are welcome if small increases in teachers’ pay this year – but this scratches the surface and isn’t enough to stop the exodus of teachers from the classroom. Schools are having to pay higher pension contributions and NI, and an apprenticeship levy as well as higher salaries.

The teachers’ pay rise is not fully funded – schools have to find the first 1% out of their existing budget – and there are different pay rises for different grades of teacher, with teachers on the upper pay scale and leadership scale being awarded below-inflation pay rises. This makes them feel unvalued and will do nothing to halt the recruitment and retention crisis in senior leadership positions.

Particularly badly hit is post-16 where the funding per student has not increased for some years and consequently, the curricular range is being narrowed.”

]]>https://susanvandeven.mycouncillor.org.uk/2018/11/01/little-extras/feed/0Shine a Light… Freedom of Information and the Ely Bridgehttps://susanvandeven.mycouncillor.org.uk/2018/10/25/shine-a-light-freedom-of-information-and-the-ely-bridge/
https://susanvandeven.mycouncillor.org.uk/2018/10/25/shine-a-light-freedom-of-information-and-the-ely-bridge/#respondThu, 25 Oct 2018 19:07:33 +0000https://susanvandeven.mycouncillor.org.uk/?p=6007Thanks to Cllr David Jenkins for this post – he writes:

A colleague at the County Council has done some excellent work to demonstrate how abuse of process, by councillors who should know better, resulted in the Ely bridge cost overrun.

Until now we’ve depended on what’s in papers for the Economy & Environment Committee in which officers were remarkably restrained as they tried to explain why the project had proceeded as it did (click here for my last related post). Now we’ve got the background information from emails and internal reports which have been provided in response to an FOI request from Nichola Harrison.

Nichola’s compiled a report (click here to read and/or download it) in which she provides the detail which led to the Ely project being progressed against officer advice and contrary to good project management principles. She does this in the broader context of the Mayor’s bold plans for transport projects in Cambridgeshire & Peterborough.

There’s no doubt we do need to be bold when we plan for Cambridge’s future but we also need to be rational and to make sure that decisions are deliberate and evidence based. Too much recently seems to be at odds with this and focused solely on delivering the Mayor’s own agenda with speed being the only criterion of success. Witness the recent standoff with the Greater Cambridge Partnership and the flimsy A428 paper going to the next Combined Authority meeting.

Mayor Pamer is quoted as saying ‘I have to wonder what the point is of involving members at all’. Maybe he should reflect on the notion that we employ officers so that they can give informed advice and that members should listen to that advice and make decisions based on it and not in defiance thereof.

We are writing to you, as councillors and campaigners for our interlinked cluster of villages, to keep you informed of local issues involving the District and County Councils. If you would prefer not to receive this email newsletter, please reply asking to be removed from the distribution list. If you know of someone not receiving this newsletter who would like to do so, please ask them to contact us – details are below.

JUNIOR TRAVEL AMBASSADORS TAKE CAMBOURNE BY STORM

Check out Meldreth Primary School’s delegation to the Greater Cambridge Partnership meeting, near the start of the video, here.

OXFORD-CAMBRIDGE RAIL LINE: STAY INFORMED

About 150 people attended Shepreth Village Hall on 25 September to hear the CamBedRailRoad Group’s presentation on possible routes for the Oxford-Cambridge Rail line, and the final connection between Bedford to Cambridge. The likely single ‘preferred route’ to be announced in late 2018 runs alongside Bassingbourn, Whaddon, Meldreth, Shepreth and Foxton.

The CBRR Group is highlighting the potential advantages of an alternative route aligned with the A428 corridor, where the overwhelming bulk of South Cambridgeshire planned housing development will take place but which lacks public transport links.

More information here.

COUNTY COUNCIL FINANCE: THE GRINCH STEALS CHRISTMAS

Recently it’s been announced that Council staff who earn more than £25K per year will be required to take three days unpaid leave between Christmas and New Year, in order to save the council £880k. Meanwhile, the Council Leader openly predicts that CCC will follow the Northamptonshire bankruptcy path in two years. However, there are choices to be made:

If the County Council had taken recent council tax increases permitted by Government, it would have an extra £26 million revenue this year. Going forward, the administration plans to resume council tax freezes for three years, starting in 2020. It concedes that this is due to a perceived advantage in local elections, even though freezes mean more cuts.

Soon the council will receive no further Revenue Support Grant from government – instead ‘Negative Revenue Support Grant’ will kick in, whereby the County Council must pay into to central government coffers rather than the other way around. This is central government policy.

Our budget papers cite risks around Brexit – especially workforce shortages for the care industry, but also a national economic downturn.

The Grinch could be turned away.

EUROPE IN MY VILLAGE

You’ll spot some familiar faces in ‘Europe in My Village’, showing how being part of the European Union has worked for Cam Valley Orchards, Shepreth Wildlife Park, Maycroft Care Home, Melbourn Village College, and more. Printed at Esson Print Shepreth, and available at One Stop Meldreth – or read it here.

COULD YOU BE A TEACHER?

As you may know, we are facing a teacher shortage in Cambridgeshire. The County Council has organised an Initial Teacher Training provider event to make people more aware of all the options open to them. Please help us spread the word about the Getting into Teaching event at Anglia Ruskin University on Monday 19 November 2018, 6-8PM. There will be a range of local providers attending offering all phases and routes such as school centred places, PGCEs, B.Ed or internships. To book a place for the event, please follow this link.

CHILDREN’S CENTRE SERVICES

Given big changes that took place at Bassingbourn at the end of August, and the fact that outreach services are as yet non-existent, we would be grateful to hear from anyone with their concerns – thank you. Changes have taken place too at Melbourn– so again, please get in touch.

£400K COMMUNITY GRANT POT

Voluntary and community groups are being asked to bid for a share of over £400,000 of grant funding to help make sure vital services are delivered in South Cambridgeshire villages.

The three-year funding deal by South Cambridgeshire District Council will see money available for groups supporting communities on issues ranging from community transport and homelessness to living independently and support for people for upcoming national changes to benefits.

Full details of the service support grants available along with application forms can be found here. Jose chairs the Grants Committee and would be happy to answer any questions.

AGE UK HANDYPERSON SCHEME

District and County Councils together run a countywide Handyperson Service, delivered by Age UK. The scheme entitles older people to a free home assessment and will fit any grab rails for free. More information here.

ENERGY EFFICIENT COUNCIL HOUSING

Council homes across South Cambridgeshire are now among the most energy-efficient Council properties in the country. They are better for the environment, and easier and cheaper to heat and run for tenants. This follows a £15 million, four-year programme to make the District Council’s housing stock as green as possible. This has been funded almost entirely by the authority itself through the rent it receives. Improvements carried out since 2014 have combined to give the Council’s 5,700 homes the equivalent of a ‘C’ score on Energy Performance Certificates.

This was achieved by upgrades to homes, including the installation of extra loft insulation, fitting external solid wall insulation and improving heating systems, especially at homes not supplied with mains gas. The programme has also seen older windows replaced with triple glazing and older doors bought up-to-date to prevent draughts.

Additionally, during the past few years, around 2,400 Council properties have benefited from the installation of solar panels, providing clean, renewable electricity and further reducing energy bills. Where possible and appropriate, air source heat pumps have also been installed.Please contact Jose for any further information.

Finally, thank you to those who’ve asked us when the Sustainable Parish Energy Partnership might be revived – Philippa is taking this forward at SCDC, so watch this space.

ENERGY SWITCH AND OIL CLUB REMINDER

Our local Oil Club can help with finding lowest prices on household heating oil. We get a rebate every year which is donated to a local community group; last year this went to the Citizens Advice Bureau drop-in service at the Melbourn Hub. Our supplier’s details: Jeremy Cole on 01954 719452 for more information – or email jeremy@agricole.co.uk or see www.agricole.co.uk.

Changes to some aspects of bin collections in Cambridge City and South Cambridgeshire are being proposed to streamline what is a shared service. Most of the changes affect Cambridge City only, but the one proposed change for South Cambs residents is the introduction of a charge for those who want more than one green bin, for which Cambridge City residents already pay. The first green bin will remain free. 95% of Councils that offer a garden waste service already charge for additional green bins. The cost will be £35 per year but reduced to £20 for the first year. The scheme would officially begin in April 2019 with residents able to sign-up from early next year. A formal decision will be made on November 8th. Any questions, please contact Philippa.

TRAIN SERVICES

Recently, Meldreth, Shepreth and Foxton Rail User Group representatives attended a meeting at King’s Cross with senior GTR staff to press for the restoration of the May timetable and semi-fast London services, and other issues of concern raised by rail users. Some services have now been reintroduced and the rest of our missing weekday services should be restored by December. The Rail User Group is now pushing hard on a plan for restoration of weekend services. A full report of the meeting is posted here. http://meldrethsheprethfoxtonrail.org.uk/2018/10/10/govia-thameslink-railway-and-meldreth-shepreth-and-foxton-rail-user-group-meeting-28-september/

NEW PLATFORM SHELTERS ON THE WAY

We are told by GTR that Foxton and Shepreth Stations will see new shelters erected on the Cambridge platforms by December, while Meldreth Station’s first ever Cambridge platform shelter is scheduled to be installed by March.

STATION TUBS: JOIN THE PLATFORM GARDENERS

Tubs will be planted up for winter shortly – at Shepreth on October 20 morning, Meldreth October 27, 9:30AM, and Foxton details soon to be announced. If you’d like to help, please come along on the day, or contact us for more details.

A10 CORRIDOR CYCLING CAMPAIGN MEETING: OCTOBER 17

All welcome at 7:30, upstairs at The Plough, Shepreth – grab a pint and come along. The agenda and more about the campaign can be found here.

MALTON LANE MELDRETH ROAD CLOSURE

From 5-16 November, 8:30-15:30 daily, Malton Lane will be closed in order for County Highways to carry out remedial drainage works near the junction with North End – action arising out of the Meldreth Flood Avoidance tour last spring.

TOWER CLOSE VISITED BY DRAGON PATCHER

Tower Close Bassingbourn pot holes have recently been treated by County Highways’ new and improved Dragon Patcher. It will be good to see if the fillings stick through the coming winter, which would be an improvement. Thanks to everyone who so diligently persisted in reporting pot holes on line, as the cluster of reports made an impact.

REPAIR CAFES

The District Council helps volunteers to set up new Repair Cafes. If you are interested in setting up a Repair Cafe and would like support, or if you would like to volunteer as a repairer, please email spep@scambs.gov.uk or call 01954 713070. Or if you have items you’d like to see fixed, see here for details of repair cafés coming up. Any questions, please ask Philippa.

COMMUNITY CALENDAR: GET YOUR EVENT PUBLICIZED

Gareth.Bell@scambs.gov.uk, at the Communications Team at SCDC, can see about putting your community event in the Community Calendar in the South Cambs Magazine. The Magazine comes out quarterly – so think about advertising Christmas events now.

TUESDAY EVENING YOUTH CLUB AT MELBOURN PAVILLION

This free youth club is open to 11-16-year-olds in our area – for more information please see here.

CELEBRATING AGES: TEA WITH TEENS

The very popular fixture will take place on November 19 at the Cambridge Motel, with Melbourn Village College students sitting down to chat with older residents of our community. Please contact Jose if you’d like to attend. Meanwhile Bassingbourn Village College is exploring the possibility of holding a similar event in Bassingbourn – watch this space.

The Melbourn and Bassingbourn wards both fall fully within the proposed Letchworth and Royston Constituency. Though they would remain in the county of Cambridgeshire, their MP would cover an constituency stretching over two counties. The final recommendations will need to be passed by Parliament; they would then take effect at the next Parliamentary election, currently scheduled for 2022. Otherwise the current constituency boundaries would remain in place.

DROP-IN ADVICE SURGERY

We are at the Melbourn Hub every first Monday of the month, 3-4PM, and Susan is at the Limes Community Room Bassingbourn every third Monday of the month, 3-4PM. If these times are inconvenient for you, let us know and we’ll arrange another date and time to suit.

ANY ITEMS WE CAN HELP TO RAISE?

We would be delighted to address any concerns you may have or help raise awareness of issues affecting our community via this newsletter.

Sincerely yours,

Philippa, Jose and Susan

Philippa Hart, District Councillor for Melbourn, Meldreth, Shepreth and Whaddon

I’ve been contacted by concerned residents who rightly feel that more should be done to raise awareness of the following:

About 150 people attended the September 25 meeting at Shepreth Village Hall in order to hear a presentation from the ‘CamBedRailRoad’ (CBRR) group. The backdrop is the likely recommended ‘preferred route’ for the Bedford-Cambridge segment of ‘East West Rail’ – a project seeking to connect Oxford-Cambridge, with onward regional connections.

An announcement is expected before the end of 2018 and the preferred option is likely to run alongside Bassingbourn Barracks, Whaddon, Meldreth, Shepreth and Foxton. It appears that the line would join the existing London-Cambridge line between Shepreth and Foxton, but you should be aware that unfortunately there are no plans for these new trains to stop at our village stations. There would of course be some significant local impacts in terms of the line running close to (or through?) some properties and requiring new level crossings.

CamBedRailRoad’s proposes an alternative route along the A428 corridor on the basis that this is where the bulk of South Cambs planned population growth is focused – Bourn Airfield, Cambourne and Northstowe – yet the A428 corridor lacks a strategic public transport link. CBRR are asking for equal consideration of both schemes.

The above diagram shows roughly the current ‘preferred route’ (C2-2 is the most southerly line), as CBRR have best been able to derive from available information.

Clearly all major infrastructure projects create challenges, but fellow councillors and I do feel it is important the villages are immediately aware of this as once final the final routes for consultation are announced we will have limited opportunity to influence the outcome.

Please note: The preferred route came from the Jacobs Report commissioned by Network Rail, but the East West Rail project is now the responsibility of the newly constituted East West Rail Company. If you would like to learn more, there’s lots of information under the ‘Resources’ section here.

After an unprecedentedly long time (over four years) the South Cambs Local Plan has finally been passed by the Inspector and formally adopted by South Cambs District Council.

This was not the Local Plan that would have been forward had the Liberal Democrats been in power four years ago but even so they have considered what is in the best interests of residents by either approving or rejecting the plan. A key consideration is that until very recently there was no five-year housing land supply which together with no Local Plan has meant a free for all for developers to build houses just about anywhere. In fact, there are now 5000 houses with planning permission that are not in any local plan.

Key housing sites in the two Local Plans (for Cambridge and South Cambs) that have been found sound by the inspectors are below. Only a proportion of the homes at the larger sites would be built by 2031:

A new town north of Waterbeach – approximately 8,000-9,000 homes

A new village at Bourn Airfield – approximately 3,500 homes

An expansion to Cambourne to the west – since the South Cambridgeshire Local Plan was submitted planning permission has been granted for 2,350 homes

Homes on land north of Cherry Hinton and west of Teversham – 1,200 homes

Extension to Cambridge Biomedical Campus to support the growth of this cluster

Extension to the Peterhouse Technology Park on Fulbourn Road

Other key policies in the plans and findings of the Inspectors include a commitment to an early review of the Local Plans. This was already a commitment of both Councils as part of signing up to the City Deal agreement. The review would commence in 2019 with submission for examination in 2022. The Inspectors confirmed that the Councils’ Green Belt evidence is robust and that no additional sites, beyond the limited sites proposed by the Councils, need to be allocated for development in the Green Belt.

For South Cambridgeshire, the Inspectors confirm that the plan makes adequate provision for Gypsies and Travellers who have been identified as meeting the current government planning definition. Further consideration will be given as part of the Local Plan review on the needs of Gypsies and Travellers who no longer travel.

]]>https://susanvandeven.mycouncillor.org.uk/2018/10/03/south-cambs-local-plan-adopted-after-record-delay/feed/0Staff shortages – Highways Depthttps://susanvandeven.mycouncillor.org.uk/2018/10/02/staff-shortages-highways-dept/
https://susanvandeven.mycouncillor.org.uk/2018/10/02/staff-shortages-highways-dept/#respondTue, 02 Oct 2018 18:53:50 +0000https://susanvandeven.mycouncillor.org.uk/?p=5984I’ve submitted this question to the October full council meeting:

Part of the division I represent has had no Local Highways Officer for nearly a year. Now the post of District Manager, who oversees the Local Highways Officers, is vacant.

Another Local Highways Officer from a neighbouring patch has been assigned to help cover the gap. He now has responsibility for 37 villages, and no money left until next financial year.

The County Council is doing its best to recruit to both the Local Highways Officer and District Manager posts.

As Local Member, what response should I give to requests from my residents for reasonable work that needs doing, knowing that existing staff are vastly overstretched and that money has run out less than half-way through the financial year?

]]>https://susanvandeven.mycouncillor.org.uk/2018/10/02/staff-shortages-highways-dept/feed/0Europe in My Villagehttps://susanvandeven.mycouncillor.org.uk/2018/09/11/europe-in-my-village/
https://susanvandeven.mycouncillor.org.uk/2018/09/11/europe-in-my-village/#respondTue, 11 Sep 2018 09:00:44 +0000https://susanvandeven.mycouncillor.org.uk/?p=5975Here are some conversations about the positive impact of our country’s membership of the European Union, at community level: the school, the doctors’ surgery, the fruit farm, the care home, the shoe shop, the zoo – or the nearest business to where you live.

Equally, it is about the damage to local economies and opportunities, in particular for young people, that extrication from the European Union inevitably brings.